es but died three years later on November 30, 1988. The families of the men filed law suit against Judas Priest and their record company. Judas Priest initially tried to declare the lawsuit inadmissible because they were not American citizens, but the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that, having distributed their albums in the United States, the band was subject to personal jurisdiction (Judas Priest v. Nevada 1988). During the trail, the plaintiffs argued that the suicides were the result of hidden messages on the Judas Priest album, a song of which would contain the words "do it, do it". Plaintiffs attorneys had strategically decided not to sue Judas Priest for their songs explicit lyrical content because of the decision meanwhile reached in the McCollum case. After a 17-day trial, Judge Whitehead ruled that Judas Priests music had not incited the two youths to commit suicide because their album "Stained Class" did not contain any deliberate subliminal messages (Vance v. Judas Priest 1990). While the song "Better By You, Better Than Me" did contain the subliminal phrase "do it", the judge ruled that this was merely the result of an accidental noise caused by a guitar part and an exhalation. Applying the Brandenburg incitement test, Judge Whitehead ruled that: "the plaintiffs did not lose this case because defendants proved that subliminal stimuli have no effect on human behavior... Rather, plaintiffs lost this case because they failed to prove that defendants intentionally placed subliminal messages on the album and that those messages were a cause of the suicide" (Vance v. Judas Priest 1990:22, in Houser 1990:330). 3. Music and Obscenity: The 2 Live Crew Go to Court The obscenity case of the 2 Live Crews album "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" is one of the most interesting court cases on popular music. The case is complicated because of the facts that were involved, the court ruling that was reached on the albums obscenity, the reversal of the...
